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Smithy announces he has to get home to Romana because she’ll be trying to get the girls to bed while they grill her about where Daddy is.

After clearing away the tea things, Smithy grabs his car keys and gives Owen another friendly pat on the back.

“You know where we are if you need us,” he tells Owen, who stands up and straightens his trousers.

“Thanks.”

“I mean it. Just call.”

They disappear around the corner, and I’m left on my own in Owen’s living room. Feeling redundant, I spot a cup Smithy missed, so I get up and take it through to the kitchen.

My job means I’m very familiar with the beauty of a stunning kitchen, but nothing prepares me for Owen’s.

The cabinets are light wood, the worktops a pale grey slate effect with a chrome range-style cooker. A large island sits in the centre of the room, adorned with a glass vase that houses the most ornate large-leaved plant I’ve ever seen. There are two shelves, each with matching white bowls displayed on them, and a large chopping board on the island that appears as if it has never been used. The whole thing looks like one of the show kitchens at work. But the beauty isn’t just coming from the units; it oozes from the entire room, with its vaulted ceiling housing six skylights and the wooden-framed window sitting over the sink.

I can see greenery on the other side of the glass, so I make my way over to the sink and peer out.

“You can go outside if you want to,” Owen says, and I jump as if I’ve been caught snooping.

“It looks beautiful,” I say, my hand pressed against my chest.

He unlocks the back door, opens it, and makes his way outside. I follow, stepping onto the slate slabs that are evenly spaced over pale shingle. I wish I knew more about plants and was able to name all the weird and wonderful things he has growing in his garden, but I have no clue what half of them are, some of the larger ones looking like something from the Jurassic period.

But it all has its place. It’s so tidy, so organised, like he’s told them all to grow up nicely and not make a mess, and they’ve listened to him, like he’s a plant whisperer.

There’s a bench under the kitchen window where Owen sits. I perch next to him, knowing this must be the best view of the entire garden. We don’t say anything, just admire the view and breathe in the late-summer air like we have all the time in the world.

“This is my safe place,” he says after a while. “This is where I come to forget it all, to just be quiet and peaceful. Do you have somewhere like this?”

“I don’t know. My head is never quiet. And I don’t think I could go anywhere to escape that. Although, I do like a bath. I like to close the bathroom door, fill the tub with hot water, and add some nice oils, then sink down, close my eyes, and try to still my brain. Doesn’t last long. Five minutes, maybe, but it’s the closest thing I get,” I tell him.

His eyes scan the garden. “It’s taken me a while to get it to look like this.”

“But so worth it. It really is amazing. I never knew a garden could look and feel like this. If you look up at the sky, we could be anywhere in the world right now, not in the back garden of a house in Kingsgate.”

“Paul loved it out here,” Owen says, staring at the ground, his eyes lost. “He would waddle out the door and find the sunniest spot to sunbathe, and then he’d get too hot and go and lie under the hosta before deciding he liked it better in the sun and going back to his original place. People say you can’t tell when a dog is happy, but I knew when Paul was happy, and this was one of the places he was happiest.”

I fight the urge to take his hand.

“Then this is probably the best place to sit and remember him,” I say softly.

And we stay here until the sun finally sets and the solar lights illuminate the garden in a warm glow, casting shadows of large leaves that almost look like they’re waving, as if Paul is waving goodbye, telling us he’s in his happy place.

41

Alice

The morning drags, even though the Saturday kitchen shoppers are out in force asking all manner of questions, such as which is the easiest to clean, which style won’t age, and which worktop is best for hiding stains.

Normally, I don’t mind answering questions. I know how important a kitchen is and how expensive they are, and for some people, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime purchase, so it has to be right. I’m also known for asking completely irrelevant or unimportant questions, although they aren’t unimportant to me.

But today, none of it feels like it matters, and I want to tell the woman asking how long the cabinet doors take to close because of the soft-close hinges that it isn’t important. What matters is that you haven’t just lost one of your best friends.

Owen isn’t at work today because it’s his day off. We sat in his garden last night until the sun went down, and I told him I should head home. Even though I wanted to stay, I figured he might need his space.

I asked him how he felt about his day off, and he admitted he would rather have been at work because it would take his mind off things and there were no reminders of Paul at Kitchen City.

“Home is the hardest place to be right now,” he’d said. “Because Paul was my home. Paul was everywhere: lying on the sofa, padding through the kitchen, waiting by the letterbox for the mail, barking at birds in the garden.”